What Does Emotional Intelligence Have To Do With Being A Leader?

Emotional IQ has been the subject of extensive writing. In fact, there are almost 40 million results for the term in a fast Google search! It's obvious that this idea has gained a lot of support, and leadership scenarios value it more and more. In this post, we'll look at what emotional intelligence is and why empathic leadership is important.

How do you define emotional intelligence?

Psychology Today says that emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize and handle one's own emotions as well as the emotions of others. Wikipedia says that emotional intelligence is the ability to sense, use, understand, manage, and handle emotions.

Emotionally intelligent people are self-reflective and take the time to figure out what they are feeling and why, instead of just reacting on instinct when they feel something. When a coworker lets them down, someone with emotional intelligence doesn't automatically point the finger at that person. Instead, they pause to consider the viewpoint of the other and look into the reasons behind that person's actions.

The phrase, which is often shortened to "EQ," was first used by psychologists in the middle of the 1960s. It was based on Abraham Maslow's idea of "emotional strength" from the 1950s. We almost all have the capacity to improve this ability, even though some components of emotional intelligence are innate (some people find it simpler to be empathic than others).

There are five components to emotional intelligence

Emotional intelligence is composed of five fundamental components. Which are:

1. Self-Awareness

2. Self-Regulation

3. Motivation

4. Empathy

5. Social Skills

Daniel Goleman, an American psychologist, made these five factors well-known with his book Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships, which was a huge success and a New York Times bestseller.

Frequently, the last two items on this list are what people mean when they refer to EQ. Let's take a closer look at these five components.

Self-Awareness

This is the capacity to recognize one's own emotions and their underlying causes.

Actually, this is a form of meta-awareness. The self-aware leader is aware of the world around them and knows how to respond to it. They are also learning to recognize their own feelings, thoughts, and motives as they come up. People who are emotionally self-aware are self-assured but also capable of self-criticism. They can make fun of their own errors. Without being too fixated on other people's perceptions of them, they may realistically assess how others see them.

In terms of leadership, the self-aware person is not at all "thin-skinned" and is open to constructive criticism.

Mindfulness can be a helpful way to become more self-aware because it encourages people to sit with their own feelings, let them come to consciousness, name them, and then let them go. If you can figure out what you're feeling and how you're feeling while you're still awake, it may be easier to figure out how you feel later.

Motivation

Inherent drive to develop and improve.

When it comes to this part of emotional intelligence, status and money are not the only things that matter. Leadership development should be rewarded in and of itself. A leader with real emotional intelligence is always looking for ways to improve their work, stays up to date on new developments in their field, and shares what they've learned with others.

When viewed from a different perspective, motivation becomes essential for overcoming. Every successful entrepreneur has had to learn the hard way how to stay motivated when things don't go as planned. Every successful entrepreneur has had to learn the hard way how to stay motivated when things don't go as planned.

It is important to recognize that failure is a step on the path to success. Additionally, it increases your resilience.

The desire to learn new things is also essential since it keeps leaders informed of developments and trends in their industry. Leaders that are driven by a desire to better themselves are often the best at motivating by example as well; people want to follow in their footsteps.

Empathy

The capacity to perceive another person's feelings

Empathy was once practically considered a sign of weakness. Leadership lacked empathy when employees were expected to "pull their socks up" and do their jobs. Sadly, this attitude still lingers in some business cultures, but these environments are becoming incredibly rare.

Only after achieving self-awareness can empathy develop. This makes sense because we can't grasp our own minds; how could we possibly know another person's? Empathy rejects solipsism because it looks at other people's feelings and actions with the same openness that we use to look at our own.

Both the manager and the employee benefit from empathic leadership. By helping leaders spot the early signs of dissatisfaction or disengagement, it not only reduces conflict but also lowers employee turnover, makes the workplace healthier, and can cut burnout by a lot.

It should come as no surprise that when workers feel heard, valued, and understood, their attitudes toward their company improve. Leadership that is compassionate can increase output and even cut down on absences. In the past few years, there has been a big rise in employee wellness programs as companies try to be more caring.

Social Skills

Our capacity to interact deeply with people.

This last aspect of emotional intelligence is unrelated to how well-liked or popular a leader is. It has to do with how aware they are of subtle social cues. For example, a manager with good people skills would understand not to take personally a joke made about them. They would know when to decline their own invitation to a company social gathering.

Leaders with good people skills often do a great job of taking care of their customers and can calm down tense situations. If you've ever complained about the food at a restaurant but still left wanting to tell others about it, you probably met a waiter with great people skills.

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